Power, Love, and Betrayal
by Kim Pluedeman
Summary: Harry finds himself coming up to his seventh year in Hogwarts and finding out his troubles are far from over. There's the fact that a strange man appeared on his doorstep claiming he was something unproven, Hermione and Ron are going out...
1. Chapter One: A Timely Visitor

Chapter One: The Timely Visitor

Sunlight began to shine on Privet Drive where our hero lay, sleeping in the second bedroom of the Dursley's household. It was a quiet morning, save the twittering of the birds and the mewling of the nearby neighbor cat. No one would be awake now, since it was 4:53. Harry Potter lay there, peaceful, not dreaming about what lay out in the world beyond, not worrying about his picky aunt and uncle or cousin, not caring that someone was there to see him.

A dark figure, six foot or so, stood at the street end, waiting. Clearly exhausted, like he had just run a marathon, he bent over and caught his breath. Light started to creep into the street, and his facial figure began to sharpen. He looked about twenty or so with long blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a somewhat protruding chin. He wore a hat like gangsters wore in the movies and a trench-coat, which fell down to his knees. His face was so softened, but right now it was contorted in fear, eyes wide open, as if searching for someone who was about to kill him. And so someone was planning to.

He ran, to and fro, looking for something, or someone, but didn't seem to find what he wanted. He looked at his watch: 4:58. Not much time, he thought, and tried to remember what the address was… Number what, Privet Drive? There were only ten numbers, but now he only had one minute, so he chose the closest one to him: Number Four.

He dodged inside, the door swinging open, and just at that minute, the clock inside the Dursley's home struck five o'clock.

BOOM. It was like an explosion blew up right outside their door, which woke up nearly everyone in the house, save Dudley, who stupidly sat up and yelled, "Where's the cannon?" and fell over again. Harry bolted upright immediately, and grabbed his wand. Running downstairs, he stopped when he saw the man at the base of the stairs. Frozen fear flooded over him, and he went to curse the man, but halted. He still wasn't allowed to use magic out of school. He stood there, wand halfway to position, frozen there, when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia burst out of their room and nearly ran Harry over. He tumbled down the stairs, making such a ruckus so to wake all the neighbors within miles, if they weren't already awake. His guardians froze at the situation. Harry had been holding his wand up as to put a curse out. Meaning…

"HARRY POTTER!"

Harry lay there, seeing stars in front of his face, not knowing what was happening but then fully remembered as Uncle Vernon pulled him up and shook him violently, screaming in his face.

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING WITH YOUR WAND, BOY?" he bellowed like an angry bull, his face growing more purple and splotchy than ever.

"I-I wasn't do-doing anything…" he tried to explain, but was cut off.

"WE HEARD THAT BLAST, AND THEY TOLD YOU THAT YOU CAN'T DO MAGIC OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL! YOU'LL BE OUT BEFORE THEY CAN SAY IT!"

"But that wasn't me! I swear, I woke up to the…"

"TOO RIGHT IT WASN'T YOU! I KNOW BETTER!"

It was like talking to a door; no matter how many times Harry tried, he couldn't get across to his uncle that he didn't make anything explode and that he was wondering what had. For all his luck, he could convince the window and rug his predicament faster than he could to Uncle Vernon. He didn't mention the man, though; he figured if he did his two guardians would really think him mentally unstable, instead of just pretending he was.

As soon as Uncle Vernon calmed down, he sounded as though he too had just run a marathon. He sat there, breathing heavily, his face slowly going from purple to magenta and finally back to a peachy flesh color. Aunt Petunia just stood there, shocked that Vernon had done such a thing. It seemed she was still shocked over last summer's Howler coming. And then, as suddenly as it ended, she screamed so loudly it almost broke the windows. Harry whipped around and saw the man standing there, covering his ears from the scream. Uncle Vernon bellowed loudly too, although he didn't have much voice to do it properly. He lunged at the man, but before he could lay a finger on him he stopped. The man had out a wand and made Harry's uncle freeze- _in midair._ His eyes darted back and forth, as though to ask Petunia for help, but she stood shocked and wide eyed. She had stopped screaming too.

"All right then," he said, pulling off his coat. "Let's get down to business. I'll let you go if you promise not to hurt me or Harry here." How the man knew Harry's name, he didn't know but Harry didn't push him or otherwise he might get the same as Uncle Vernon. Personally, Harry didn't want to be like a frozen popsicle in the air.

Uncle Vernon made a moaning noise, which to the man must have meant 'yes', so the man waved his wand and Vernon fell from the air, landing with a 'thud' on the carpet at the end of the stairs. Petunia ran to get him up.

"All right then, Harry, you come with me. We need to talk," he simply put. He headed for the living room.

"Excuse me?" said Uncle Vernon. He seemed to regain some of his courage, but definitely not all of it. He was still shaking. "You freeze me in midair, and I'm not even allowed in what this has to do with-with- _whatever_?"

The man stuck his wand out again, and both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon shrank backwards toward the stairs. "This concerns neither of you, and will not, hopefully until later. If you would please, go back upstairs and stay in your bedrooms until I leave."

They both looked shocked to be given orders like they were young children, but feared otherwise if they didn't, so the trumped upstairs and entered their room. The door closed with a _click_, and they were left downstairs alone.

"This way," the stranger said, and he headed into the living room.

Harry followed him cautiously, not daring to believe what he just saw. This complete stranger just told his aunt and uncle orders, and they obeyed like dogs. If he had the power to do that, he would have used it more often. But yet, the mystery of this man was overwhelming. He just—appeared. No warning, no note, no nothing. Just came and conquered. This gave Harry the chills.

He entered the room and the man turned and waved his wand with a small jab. Harry flinched, but then heard the doors to the living room slide closed. Then another wave and he couldn't hear a word going on inside the rest of the house.

"What was that for?" Harry asked, looking at the door.

"So we won't be overheard," the man simply put, waving two chairs to the middle of the room. He sat in one and motioned for Harry to sit in the other. Harry walked slowly over, and sat cautiously in it. Then he turned to the man in the other chair and asked plain out, "Sorry to be so rude, but who the hell are you?"

The man looked somewhat startled, but then calmed down right away. "Of course you wouldn't know me, you weren't old enough when your mother and I, but I guess…" He looked over and held out his hand. "I am Richard Evans. Nice to meet you, Harry Potter."

Somehow that name rang a bell. Not the first name, but the last. Somehow, he'd heard it before… but where?

"How do you know my mother?" Harry asked slowly, hoping he'd get right out who this guy was and why he was in Harry's uncle's house of all places.

"Well, I'd thought you'd guess by now, but no matter…" He stood up, held out his arms, and said, "I'm Lily's brother."


	2. Chapter Two: The Line of Evans

Chapter Two: The Line of Evans

* * *

He stood there, stunned, not believing what the man had to say. This, this Richard, he couldn't possibly be his mother's brother. He couldn't be a relative of Harry's. There was no human way; all Harry's relatives were dead, save his aunt and uncle upstairs, and his unusually fat cousin snoring the morning away. No, it couldn't be…

"But… wait," Harry said, "you couldn't… no, it's not… its not possible… the only relatives I have are upstairs now…"

"Ah, but that's where you are mistaken and wrong," Richard said. "When your parents died, I was the last one left in the Evans family. Everyone else had been killed off or had disappeared by Voldemort's doing. But I was left, and I knew he was after me next, so I hid. No one else knew I was even alive, not even Dumbledore, but when I get to Hogwarts, I'll be sure to tell him I'm not dead as they suspected," he added thoughtfully, looking skywards.

"But, how does that explain…?" Harry started.

"The explosion? Ah, that is where my plan came crashing down. Let me start from the beginning. If you have the time, please listen and listen good.

"It all started when my family all started dying. One by one, we were dying off. My mother, your grandmother, died from a supposed heart attack, but we didn't believe so. We thought it to be a murder. But the Healers said otherwise, and so we had a funeral for her. Not that much later, our father died. He was an old man and supposedly broke his hip while walking down a steep flight of stairs one day. But we knew he was as healthy as a horse and had walked those steps many times. There had to be a murdered linked to it. But, we kept going, keeping our suspicious minds at a low.

It was almost a year before anything else bad happened to our family. Then, Lily met James. Oh, how she loathed him, yet loved him. It was like a rival between the two at every second of the day. But when she got home, she would drift off to her room, pull out her journal, and write for hours on end. That, we knew, was love.

But then our aunt died. It was so devastating for Lily. She was connected to her in a way I still have never figured out. But after her death, we both decided to investigate the deaths of our family members. That was when Lily was out of school. I still had some schooling left, but I decided to skip. And so the hunt was on to find out who was responsible for the family attacks. James, naturally, helped us, but no one else found out about our searchings. It seemed like forever without any luck on who the killer was. We almost gave up… almost.

Then, when our hopes were at the end of the line, and we were just thinking about settling back down, hoping that the person would stop killing our family off, which consisted of me and Lily, James found a vital clue. It led us straight to who it was, and… well, as you guessed, it was Lord Voldemort. We didn't know why, but we just knew it was him. James went straight to Dumbledore with the news and he put an extensive spell on the Potters; Lily and James were married already. The charm, which kept the two under lock and key and undetectable by anyone, was set, and the Secret-Keeper needed to be found. I, naturally, volunteered, but they figured since Voldemort was after me too that I shouldn't be allowed to take the job. So Sirius took the job, but was the one who betrayed us all. The slimeb…"

"Actually, Sirius never did betray my parents. It was Peter Pettigrew," Harry corrected simply, then shut up for the rest of the story.

"Oh, yes, thank you. So he got the job and betrayed us all. He killed your parents and was going to kill you, but never did. Since you and I are the last remaining decendants of the Evans line, he's after us. And that explosion you heard outside, that was Voldemort."

Harry was utterly shocked. How could this be? Why was Voldemort after the Evans family? How could he get here? And how did this man, Harry's uncle, survive?

"How did you survive?" Harry sputtered out.

"I went into hiding after Voldemort was vanquished. I knew that his Death Eaters would be after me, so I left the country, pretended I was a Muggle, and lived under an alias name. I changed my image entirely, and now here I am. Of course he knows what I look like now, but I'm just so fortunate to make it back here alive."

Harry understood, but really didn't grasp the concept of why Voldemort was after them of all people. He could understand himself, yes, but why his mother? The sun was fully risen by the time they had finished. Aunt Petunia was heard cooking up the usual breakfast, and the TV in the kitchen could be heard. Wait, it could be heard…?

"The charm is wearing off, so our chat is over," Richard said. He stood up, offered a hand to Harry, and pulled him up. "If you don't mind, I really must be going. I'll change quick."

He flicked his wand to his head, and his appearance changed before Harry's eyes. Instead of long blonde hair, it changed to short cut bristly red hair. His eyes turned green and his nose grew to a large size. He shrunk to about five foot six and his clothing became casual, as though he had slept in it. A green robe appeared and he fit it on. Seeing the look on Harry's eyes, he added, "Don't worry, this is just an alias look. The first look were my real features." And with that, he Apparated.

Harry stood there, perplexed, and then darted out of the room. He ran upstairs, surprised his uncle wasn't bombarding him with questions about the stranger. Dodging into his room and closing the door, he quickly grabbed some parchment and started writing, smudging in many spots. He wrote:

_Dear Remus, _

_I hope you're having a somewhat enjoyable summer. It's going okay here. I just have one thing to discuss with you. I just want to know if my mother ever had a brother. If she did, what was his name? And did he die?_

_Sorry to bother you,_

_Harry_

Yes, that sounded good, somewhat urgent, and right down to the point. But somehow, it seemed too short. So he added:

_P.S. Say hi to Buckbeak for me, and give him a big hug._

With that, he stood up and woke Hedwig up. She looked somewhat disgruntled, but perked up when she saw the letter in Harry's hand. "Now Hedwig," he said as he tied the letter to her leg, "send this to Remus Lupin. And please, make it quick."

She nodded and gave him an affectionate nibble on the finger. Then, without warning, she took off, soaring over the rooftops. He watched her off into the horizon, then turned to collapse on his bed. He fell, and without another word spoken, he fell into another sleep.


	3. Chapter 3: Truth Revealed

Chapter Three: Truth Revealed

Harry woke up, rubbing his eyes in the bright morning sun that twinkled down on him. Feeling dazed, he got up to a dizzy spell and quickly sat back down on the bed. He thought about the other day, but still had no answers to his dilemma. Remus hadn't answered back yet, and it had been just over three days now. What was taking him so long? Was Hedwig hurt? These thoughts woke Harry up with such a start that it made him feel as if caffeine had been injected into his blood system directly. He heard the Dursleys awakening to the morning also, which made him want to stay in his room even more. All they had been doing since the visitor was, as usual, avoiding Harry. Although they left him alone, when he tried to interrogate Aunt Petunia about him, she would ignore him or leave the room or start a totally different conversation with someone else. There was no end to it.

He got up finally, hoping that there would be another chance to interrogate his aunt today, but not hoping too much. He changed quickly, throwing on a spare pair of jeans and a t-shirt that were littering his floor. It was quite messy in his room, but he didn't care and neither did anyone else in his house; they never visited him anyway. He walked downstairs into the kitchen to find the same situation he had encountered each morning since the visitor: Dudley were watching the television on the counter with piggy little eyes, eating his vegetarian diet; Uncle Vernon was reading his daily newspaper with a picture of someone water skiing on the front, and Aunt Petunia was eating her "rabbit food" as Vernon called it with pursued lips and making no sounds, peering out the nearby window as to catch the neighbors off guard and do something wrong. Petunia loved to have a reason to call the neighbors up for something they did wrong and spy on them.

Harry's entrance went as unnoticed as it always had. He sat down, grabbed his breakfast which, consequently, was smaller than Dudley's, and began eating it. He tried to wait for someone to speak, yet it was totally silent in the kitchen of the Dursleys this morning. When Harry finished his pitiful breakfast, he rose silently from the chair and made his way upstairs. But before he could, Hedwig flew into the window that Aunt Petunia was staring through at the time. She shrieked, ducked and stared at Harry, wide-eyed. Uncle Vernon bellowed loudly, swearing with every other word.

Taken aback by more than Uncle Vernon's vulgar language, Harry snatched the letter from Hedwig and ran upstairs to read it. He pretended not to hear his uncle's relentless shouts to read the letter out loud. If this was from who he thought it was…

He shut his door closed and tore the letter open, ripping one of the corners of the letter itself in the process. He looked at the last line and sighed in relief; it was from Professor Lupin. His eyes dashed back and forth across the page, reading as he went.

_Dear Harry,_

_I'm glad to hear you are doing well. I am working relentlessly here (you know where it is) and so is Ron and Hermione. They're doing the same thing as they did last summer, and I daresay it isn't the slightest bit more interesting. The only thing better is that the once present house elf is no longer under our feet all the time. His head is in other places now._

_You asked about a brother that Lily had. I never knew of anyone else that was in her family, but she did talk frequently about her friend Robert, like he was a brother. If she did have a sibling, he, or she for that matter, would probably have been killed. Her family was prone to dying._

_Buckbeak says hi and wishes you to come visit soon. Hermione, Ron, Tonks and I all believe you will be coming soon. We are trying to make arrangements as soon as possible._

_Sincerely,_

_Moony_

That was enough to explain a big part of Harry's curiosity. Aunt Petunia didn't recognize him because he's not really related. He would have been a threat to Voldemort because he claimed to be related. Maybe that was even a trap to trick him. This all made sense now. That big bang outside was Voldemort trying to get Robert, but he got inside this house before the blow-up, if it was that at all. And since this house was protected with a spell that kept them safe if he still called it home.

Now that Harry got it all, he wanted to speak with this man. He wanted to speak with Harry before, so if he had something to talk about, maybe he would come to Harry again. Not knowing how this was going to work at all, he turned to Hedwig and said, "You know that man who was with us three days ago?" She hooted feebly, and Harry, hoping that was a 'yes', replied, "I need you to find him and get him to come visit again or write a letter or something. And hurry," he added quickly. She took off without a second glance, spreading her wings and soaring over the winding street that was Privet Drive. He stared down upon the people on the street, noticing the neighbor's kids playing in their backyard and the wife watching them with a kind face. Harry could just imagine Aunt Petunia peering out of the kitchen window at them, glaring and hoping that they messed up. He chuckled silently, then went back downstairs.

He headed outside where the sun was gleaming brightly overhead. His feet led him down the street to the swings that weren't vandalized by Dudley yet. He usually didn't go to this park, but since his old one was demolished at last, this was his last resort. It took him nearly twenty minutes to get there, but he needed the exercise for not being outside since… who knew when. He got to the swing and sat down, swaying back and forth, hoping Hedwig would get back soon. It wasn't long until the sun was fully overhead and he felt his neck being scorched when he finally led himself back to Number Four.

When he got there, no one asked him any questions as usual as he ate the little bit of food that was set out for him. Dudley wasn't back yet, so the television wasn't on. Harry pelted his food down and returned to the confines of his room. When he got there, however, someone was waiting for him there.

"Hedwig! You're back so fast… What's wrong…" he started, then gasped. Hedwig was gripping Robert's hat, and something was stained on it. Something that looked like…

"No…" he gasped. No, it couldn't be. There was a note of fear in Harry's voice when he said it. There wasn't a chance of him being killed…

A piece of paper fell from the inside of the hat and Harry stooped to pick it up, hoping it was news of hope or encouragement. But it was far from it.

_Hello Harry._

_I would imagine you have had some sort of confrontations with this man. I have disagreed with your actions. If you were here in person, I would kill you for the thoughts of trying to contact him, but since your bird was kind enough to not peck my eyes out I gave mercy. This is a warning. Anyone you might come into contact with will be punished. Remember Potter, that I am all knowing. _

_Lord Voldemort always knows._


End file.
